Why you need an Unsubscribe Strategy

Unsubscribes are not something every marketer wants to see from their email marketing campaign but they actually help with open rates!

To keep it simple let's say that if 250 out of your 1000 subscribers open an email then the open rate is 25%. Therefore, if 100 subscribers opt out through the automated prompt and 250 of your 900 subscribers open the email, then your open rate is 27.7%.   

If you are just focusing on the total subscriber count, an unsubscribe isn’t a great thing but if you take the view that by even showing up in someone's email inbox you are helping to create awareness of your brand, then it certainly is! In addition your email marketing may serve as a reminder that sends people directly to your website, ok they may have not bought something or downloaded your content but they have still heard of your brand and if you're using an integrated approach to your marketing they may hear about you in the future and turn back on to wanting to hear from you.    

So how do we help the "in-betweeners" those subscribers who are receiving your content, not neccessarily engaging with it but not unsubscribing?  Firstly it goes without saying that your e-marketing needs to include quality content but it's important that you consider the following:        

A Warm Welcome 

Your first correspondence is extremely important and sets the tone for a potential unsubscribe! Therefore, establishing a relationship from the beginning and pitching your communication as a warm welcome should make readers less likely to leave you and draw them into the conversation.

Asking readers questions in the communication and giving them the option to reply direct to your writer actually helps to increase engagement. In addition giving your communication a human touch and by giving them an individual perspective rather than coming from the brand it feels more welcoming, human and personal.   

Reengage before the 30-day milestone

If you check your email marketing analytics you can check the last time that somebody opened your email. So get ahead of that 30 day unsubscribe prompt ask the inactive subscriber if they want to stick around. Perhaps you can be cheeky and start your subject line with "are we annoying you?" 

You can then build on this in the body of the email with a short to the point communication such as:   

 Just a quick message as you signed up to receive emails from us here at (your company name) but it’s been a while since you last opened an email from us, and we are missing you! We’re in the process of removing people from our list who don’t want to receive email from us any longer about (insert what you do and be precise - so this from a marketing perspective could be content marketing, services etc) so please hit the unsubscribe button and we'll remove you right away.

You could also include the option to ask how often they want to hear from you which gives them control of how often they engage with your brand.     

You may be worried about sending this type of email as it could be counterintuitive, but if you look at the plus points it gives the recipient the option to unsubscribe immediately and if they do you get a cleaner email list. But it gives the recipient options that benefit both you and them. If they unsubscribe immediately, you get a cleaner email list. If they click the “confirm how often you want to hear from us” link, you have a reengaged subscriber (and a data point about email frequency).

If subscribers don’t respond to this attempt, send one more “last-call” email a week to 10 days later. Let them know you respect their lack of interest and will remove them from the list within the next two weeks. Of course, you’ll want to include a last-chance stay option. If they don’t take it, then remove them. Your list will be cleaner and your engagement numbers should reflect that.

Frequency

Frequency is the top reason people opt out of emails. HubSpot did a survey that found more than half of respondents said that they had unsubscribed because the emails were too frequent. Their findings showed that emails sent once a day  irritated 34% of those surveyed and once a week bothered only 17%. Therefore, it’s important that you ask your recipients about frequency, how often they want to receive the emails and which topics interest them.     

Stay or Go?

Email remains one of the top content marketing distribution tools so don’t shy away from unsubscribe buttons at the end of the email, welcome your subscribers at the beginning of their relationship with you and reach out when their activity declines. That way you’ll strike the perfect balance with your email marketing campaigns.    

If you’d like help with email marketing content get in touch.